Grim Views

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Outside the Scarlet Monastery, Melchisedech sat astride Spectre, his skeletal mount, watching the younglings as they entered and exited the building. He remembered vividly the time he and Acherontia had spent inside those walls, slaughtering the monks of the Crusade for their blind zealotry and genocidal persecution of the Forsaken.

He remembered those times fondly, but some of the memories darkened his features. Many of their trips into the Monastery had been in the company of Kromag, the traitor. Melchisedech had often seethed from the orc's brutal treatments, his oafish behavior, and his constant, lewd advances on Acherontia. As if the orc were worthy.

He'd proven otherwise when he chose his sister and her squalling pinkskin infant over the Grim. As far as Melchisedech was aware, his parents were alive and well in Stormwind, and yet, he would slay them without a hint of hesitation or regret if it were demanded of him.

He smiled to himself. "In fact, perhaps I should begin planning a reunion..."

The shadow that suddenly loomed over him seemed to come from nowhere. His horse reared, threw him, as a nightsaber appeared from nowhere, shifted into a massive dire bear. He hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind from his bones. A second, slimmer form materialized from the shadows, cracked him over the head with a sap. His vision blurred. He felt hands grab him roughly, felt a burlap sack thrown over his head.

Vainly, he tried to act, but without something to see, he could not lash out with his spells. I have no target, he kept thinking, struggling against the hands that held him. He felt a massive form at his side, heard a whisper in thickly accented Orcish.

"Is for Exodar, Grim."

Then he felt a blow to his skull and knew no more.

by Acherontia

With a shrill, almost human scream, Acherontia's fel-steed dissolved into wisps of black and sulfurous smoke that blew away on the stale breezes of Tirisfal. The warlock adjusted her robes and made for the inn, making no effort to dodge the townspeople - indeed, the inhabitants of Brill seemed to melt away before her, deterred perhaps by her sightless glare, her determined stride, the snarling felhunter at her heels. It had been long since she had been back here - she remembered the young, heartsick girl who had stood at the upstairs window at the inn so many months ago. The priest had followed her - or had she followed him? - as she moved among the pockets of Forsaken scattered throughout the Glades, searching, always searching. They had followed each other to Brill where they had written their applications to the Grim. Months ago, Acherontia had stormed from this inn in a fury, and was walking through its door today a Hatemonger of the Grim. She was still one of Kel'Thuzad's thirteen hell-callers...but she was taking the power for her own, a little at a time.

Soon, she would find the Lich and show him what she had learned.

The warlock settled into a chair near the fire with a mug of ale. Stroking Phukkun's prickly head absentmindedly, she sipped the foamy brew and waited for her friend.

The fist impacted Melchisedech's bony skull, sent gobbets of flesh and ichor and chips of bone flying. The Forsaken hung limply in the wooden X his captors had erected, his lips forming the words of a mantra, a prayer, over and over again.

"'E ain' gonna break, guv'ner." The human cracked his knuckles a bit, peering down at the Forsaken. "We been at this fer hours."

The draenei across from him did not reply, merely sat in his chair, watching. Behind the draenei, a night elf stood, clothed in leathers decorated with feathers and antlers, leaning heavily on a gnarled length of oak.

The human shrugged and hauled Melchisedech's head back by his greasy, stringy dreadlocks. The priest looked up at the human, his lips never ceasing their prayer.

The human hit him again, and a tooth skipped across the floor.

The draenei stood, moved to Melchisedech. He tilted the Forsaken's head back to look into his eyes. "Do you understand?"

Melchisedech did not falter in his mantra.

The draenei let his head go, and the priest slumped in his bindings. Leather cords bound his wrists and ankles to the wooden X, and a chain ran around his waist. He was supported solely by the bonds, and his weight dug them into what was left of his flesh. His fingers were gnarled, twisted, obviously broken. Shattered bones jutted out of his body at all angles.

"You kill draenei. You kill family." The blue-skinned creature looked back at the druid, then to the human, and finally to Melchisedech. "We kill you."

Melchisedech did not cease his chanting.

The draenei sighed and hefted a massive iron mace from the table in the wooden shack. "So be it."

"Might I make a suggestion?" The druid's eyes burned with a heavy fire. The draenei turned to him and nodded. "Dead, he is nothing. They will replace him or resurrect him. Alive... he is at least a message."

The draenei considered, tapping the mace against his palm. The human spoke up. "'E's right, guv'ner. We been killin' these things fer a long time, an' there's always more. Maybe we ought ter convince 'em ter jus' leave us alone, wot?"

The draenei sighed and nodded. He moved to Melchisedech and lifted his face once more. "You lucky. We not kill. Just hurt." He grinned. "Spy in Grim. We know all."

When the mace smashed into the Forsaken's face, everything went black.

Even the chimes of the clock seemed discordant and lifeless there in Brill, but their constance could not be faulted. Thrice now had the hour been struck, yet there was still no sign of the priest. Melchisedech had mentioned something about a purification ritual for Midsummer, but he had remained quiet on the specifics of when. Surely he would not have planned to meet her if he were to be occupied. Acherontia glared with sightless eyes in the direction of the tinny, jangling bells. Meditation? Study? The warlock was not his keeper; nonetheless, she could not help the irritation she felt.

She knew he would rather not be bothered when meditating, but one inconvenience surely deserved another. The blind Forsaken reached into her pack on the floor by her chair and fumbled in it for her hearthstone. Feeling the carved rune pressing into her palm, she concentrated on the priest and spoke his name aloud.

Melchisedech.

The priest heard his name called, fought for consciousness. It was like swimming in molasses. Slowly, the light rose in the sockets of his skull, the Forsaken equivalent of opening his eyes. He peered around, confused.

He saw the draenei holding his hearthstone, heard soft chuckling. He dimly recognized the voice as Acherontia's, but he couldn't see her. It took him a dazed moment to realize that her voice came from his hearthstone.

"No..." His tongue felt thick, almost refusing to work. He tasted his own ichor, nearly gagged. The draenei looked to him, grinned wickedly.

"Girl, yes?" He pointed to the hearthstone and laughed again, his massive shoulders shaking with merciless mirth. "She die too."

Melchisedech struggled to reach the draenei, realized he was bound to some form of wooden X. He started to remember her torments, the ache in his body. "I will kill you a thousand times if you so much as look at her, monster." Melchisedech didn't know if the draenei understood his words, but the burning fire in his eyes got the message across.

The draenei stepped up to Melchisedech, cupped his chin. "She look for you. She worry. I tell her." The priest struggled, tried to bite at the draenei's fingers, but the blue-skinned alien managed to snatch his hand back. It snarled and punched Melchisedech hard enough to knock loose another tooth.

Melchisedech could only watch as the draenei activated his hearthstone.

"Dead girl. Dead priest we have. Hurting him. Come soon." He grinned at Melchisedech and held the stone up to the Forsaken's lips. Melchisedech glared at the draenei.

"Don't come! It's a trAAAHHGH!" The draenei smashed the Forsaken's knee with a massive hoof, and then severed the connection, leaving Melchisedech writhing in pain.

Don't come, Acherontia. Dark Lady, don't come.

Acherontia clutched the stone within her clawed hand, trying unsuccessfully to hear the anguished scream of her friend with her head and not with her heart. Tried to focus on what must be done instead of what had been done.

"Dead priest we have."

The Orcish had barely been understandable through the thick accent, but it was similar to the voices she remembered from the raid on the Eredar ship. The guards who cursed the Grim with their dying breaths. The tradesmen who begged for their lives as their flesh jellied and melted from their bones. Now the son or brother or loved one of one of the dead had Melchisedech.

"Hurting him."

No, don't think about that part. She could barely hear her own mind through the echoes of his screaming.

"Come soon."

Then Melchisedech had cried out, and the stone had died in her hand. She sat in the Gallow's End Tavern as time slowed around her. The other Forsaken faded to mere shadows and the hushed conversations became silent echoes. The warlock became aware of a strange hammering sensation within her chest as she activated the hearthstone. The Demonic words fell thick and weighty from her lips and her voice was like gritty ice.

"Eredar." She could almost taste his blood in her mouth as she spoke. "Let me speak with the priest."

Through the haze of pain, Melchisedech realized the draenei was still holding the stone to his lips. He could hear Acherontia's voice on the other end, but it seemed distant. He had difficulty making out the words.

"Acherontia... stay away..." Images of her trapped as he was flashed through his mind, and he gritted his teeth. "Stay away."

Acherontia hesitated but for a moment at the agony in her friend'svoice. Choking her voice with emotion that she wasn't entirely sure wasforced, she hoped there were none in the room who would be able totranslate the words. "Tell me everything you see," she said inGutterspeak. "How many are there? Why did they take you? Do you knowwhere you are? What do you hear?"

To his captors, she would no doubt sound like a worried and frightenedlover. Good. Let them think whatever they wanted. Soon, they wouldn'teven have the luxury of thought.

Melchisedech glanced at the draenei, who leered at him with supreme confidence. He sighed, trying to put worried reassurance and warning into his voice. "Three... a thief, a druid, and a draenei. I do not know what they can do. I am somewhere in the Hillsbrad Foothills..."

He winced as the draenei grabbed one of his broken fingers and twisted. "Speak orc, dead."

Melchisedech glared at him. "Stay away. Do not come for me, Acherontia. Do not come to the town north of Southshore."

The draenei took the hearthstone back and lifted it to his lips. "Come soon, dead girl. Come soon."